Frustrated by a lack of informed and honest review websites covering a wide range of electronic music, I write them myself.

Monday, November 11, 2013

Terry Lee Brown, Jr. - Karambolage

Plastic City: 2006

As Terry Lee Brown Jr., Norman Feller’s made a career of making deep house music for those who don’t really like deep house music. That’s not a criticism. The deep house scene has a long, long lineage, with many permutations and variations cropping up over the years, and as such several layers of ‘deep’ for any head to dig into. When Feller started producing under this guise (probably due to his proper name already being associated with hard trance), Europe already had a thriving deep house scene in swing, though of a decidedly different bent than America's take. Instead of drawing inspiration from soul, funk, and jazz, the Old World used blissy pads and Balearic vibes in their interpretation of 'deeper than thou' tunes, and Feller was no different when he started out. Yet, there was something a little different to his sound too, a tight techno aesthetic to his grooves (just can't escape being German). It was like... 'tech-house', or something, but no way such a silly term would catch on in the mid-'90s. Deep house was good enough.

A decade on from Terry Feller's take on 'deep tech-house', and suddenly the sound is all the hipster rage, made popular by several of his fellow Germans no less. Except it's not quite the same, more minimalistic, glitchy, and clinical than the classic euro deep house feel. Since that was where the trends were heading, ol' Norman had no choice but to step in line by ...making the exact same sort of music as Terry Lee Brown Jr. as he ever had.

So Karambolage has a win/loss thing going for it, depending on your stance. If you've always liked his sound, then you're in safe hands here, as this album is all sorts of class with that distinct, nicely approachable vibe Norman's long been ace at. The pads are warm and lush, the rhythms bump and groove, the vocal samples are tasteful, and the hooks are earwormy enough that you’ll never want a track to end. That said, there aren’t any surprises here, which has always been the complaint with a Terry Lee Brown, Jr. album. Feller’s found a formula that works, and four LPs in, doesn’t have much reason to shake it up.

If there’s anything that identifies Karambolage from the other albums, I guess it’d be more of a dubby, dreamy tone compared to the straight-forward tribal tone earlier Terry material had - tracks like Moody Afternoon, Dub_servant, and Time Out don’t sound too removed from Frameless Structure, while Side Of The Shark would be quite comfortable in a peak time late-‘90s Digweed set . Don’t worry though, denizens of the dancefloor, as It’s All About, Fix Me Up, and Cosmic Rise are just as indebted to Chicago of yore as any of Terry’s classic cuts.

Karambolage isn’t an album that will astound you with ingenuity. It’s Norman Feller doing his thing as always, and for anyone willing to give it a go, that’s plenty enough.

ACE TRACKS: Across The OceanFix Me UpSide Of The Shark (Album Version)